So, I was one of the fortunate few to get picked to be in CB1 of Rift. The only thing was that the first CB only lasted three days and by time I got my invite and downloaded, I had only one day left. Because of that, I have no screenshots; I was way too busy levelling. Either way, I turned down the settings to the lowest and I know it looks much better on a good computer. There's no point in looking at my crappy shots.
The level cap was 20 and I reached level 14 on my Cleric.
This is how the skill system works:
You get main class of Warrior, Cleric, Rogue or Mage. Literally 5min in, you pick your first sub class. The main classes don't get a skill tree; the skills come purely from your sub classes. At around level 5, you get your second sub class, and I'm told that you get your third one at level 18.
You get main class of Warrior, Cleric, Rogue or Mage. Literally 5min in, you pick your first sub class. The main classes don't get a skill tree; the skills come purely from your sub classes. At around level 5, you get your second sub class, and I'm told that you get your third one at level 18.
Here is a picture of the sub classes for each main class you can pick from (taken from the beta forums):
I'm a Justicar/Shaman, and haven't gotten far enough to pick my third. I've gotta say that Justicars seem brokenly good. I leech HP back on attacks that heal everyone in the team; each time I attack, I build a devotion charge, which I can use to heal myself and the team for even more. Though I haven't tried the other stuff, so my opinion is very biased at the moment.
The quests design is decent. There is a lot of kill XX mob YY times, but they do spice it up with random weird quests, like a cheese-eating contest, racing another NPC, or throwing nets to capture fiery squirrels. lulz I didn't mind the questing at all.
Now, a huge selling point about this game are the rifts (as it is named after these XD) The concept is that there are entire rifts opening up, changing the world environment, and creating an event that players can fight.
One thing that occurred was that the rifts got rushed by every player in the area the second it opened, and they opened often. Roughly one opened every 5min, so you do get spammed with rifts. That makes it feel like a real danger of the world losing and thus you have to defend. Basically, if you don't defend the rift, the mobs that come out will walk towards your towns and own all the NPCs, thus controlling the town. At that point, you would need to group up and recapture the town before the NPCs respawn.
It is a very interesting concept that does present the feeling of danger and a need to defend the world. It does get annoying when no one else comes to help even though it can't really be soloed unless your over-levelled for that area.
That's pretty much all the content that I got through; overall, I do enjoy Rift at the moment and I'm looking forward to the next beta (if I'm in). It does have a lot of potential.
Side note: I saw that the new patch coming to Allods is very focused on PVP. It does make me kind of want to go back and play it...
~Pearz
